Road map up a cul de sac

It’s a dead end for Palestine and the demise of two-state solution but a “new and better reality for Israel”. The agreement reached between Israel and the United States on unilateral moves to withdraw from Gaza and small areas of the West Bank has been described as “historic and courageous”.

Historic. Yes. It rewards occupation and seizure of land by force. It recognizes illegal Jewish colonies/settlements and puts an end to the idea that a two-state solution could be negotiated with a Zionist Israel. Courageous. No. Two of the world’s major military powers can impose their view of the future on a dispersed and defenseless people. Power politics rules. What counts is force not the rule of law.

This agreement preempts future negotiations. Palestinians have not been consulted on the latest moves nor have neighboring states that host several million Palestinian refugees. Do they not have a say in their own future?

It ends the era of “constructive ambiguity” when both Palestinians and Israelis could interpret statements to support their own views and claims. At least it is clear to everyone that what Israel wants, Israel gets.

As early as 1937, Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion said: “…boundaries of the Zionist aspirations are the concern of the Jewish people and no external factor will be able to limit them”. While this view may always have had support of the United States, it has never been so blatantly proclaimed as on 15 April 2004.

Palestinians in this asymmetrical relationship are again in the position of having to react to unilateral decisions made in Israel and Washington. Such decisions are usually made with Israeli security in mind with no thought for the security and well-being of Palestinians.

It is the Palestinians who have no partner in negotiations. There are no negotiations, only declarations and edicts from one of the parties to the conflict. A durable peace can only be achieved when international law is applied to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, United Nations resolutions are implemented and Palestinians participate in the development of peace plans.

BADIL, Bethlehem, Palestine,  resource@badil.org  

 

 

---

 

Winning hearts and minds

Israel Training US Assassination Squads In Iraq The Guardian >"When we turn to anyone [Israeli assassination squads] for insights, it doesn't mean we blindly accept it [sic or should I say SICK]," Col Peters said. "But I think what you're seeing is a new realism. The American tendency is to try to win all the hearts and minds. In Iraq, there are just some hearts and minds you can't win. Within the bounds of human rights, if you do make an example of certain villages it gets the attention of the others, and attacks have gone down in the area."

Yah, so the h&m's you can't win, you kill.

Oh, and the Iraqi soldiers who refused to fight were not mutinying, they were experiencing a "command failure".

Eric Walberg

 

 

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

 

:Is Iraq Pacified For the Neo-Al Qaeda to Take Over

 

Blair’s visit to Kofi Anan, inaugurates the second part of the orchestrated game plan to first outrage the legality of the UN and international laws and once, you have succeeded in the first stage of illegally invading a defenseless non-western country and virtually hold it by the scruff of its neck, you go for legitimacy, knowing full well that whoever is offered the legitimacy to rule the wreck of a nation, will be tame enough to take dictation from the invading powers and their proxies --- for all times to come. This is the real face of neo-colonialism.

The invitation to UN is being sold to the world, as great boon to world peace and the ‘essence’ of US/UK/Israel’s fundamental commitment to bring ‘democracy’ to Muslim world.

This stage presupposes that Iraq will now on be a ‘pacified’ country with its own ‘UN -legitimated’ government in place.

Bush and Blair may get some surprises that were not covered by the American Zionist neo-con strategic planning blueprints. Iraq is fast becoming ungovernable.

The population of 25 million that supported a conscripted fighting army running a million-strong at times and fought its neighbour, though with full help of US/UK, now has trained fighters in each and every home.

It is the old Afghanistan story revisiting another buffer state that fought proxy war on behalf of the US/UK/ISRAEL axis and now cannot manage its ‘Muslim’ fighters.

The next phase will go to the new incarnation of the old ‘Mujahideens and Taliban’. Al Qaida came out of the ruins of Afghanistan.

Who knows what Iraq’s resistance will throw up to keep the Axis busy, robbing their own tax-payers for years to come in the name of the security of their homelands.

Are Bush and Blair friends of US/UK taxpayers? Or they are the opportunists who care only the interests of Israel that controls them both, through controlling their vote banks. Voters of US/UK are still to be heard. Watch this space.

GHULAM MUHAMMED, Mumbai – India.

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

Israeli, Palestine, America, and Bush

Truth certainly does have many facets. I just hope at some point everyone can put their guns and bombs down and resolve their issues peacefully.

As to Israel, I suspect there is still a lot of sympathy for the Jews because of what happened during World War II. There is a lot of distrust of the Palestinians because of their suicide bombers. I do not believe Israel has any more right to exist than the Palestinians, and I suspect many, no most, Americans share my view.  If anything, my impression is the media here swings more toward the Palestinian side than the Israeli side in a lot of instances. All of us would like the whole matter resolved so all those people, Jews and Palestinians, can live in peace.

I might add I was a newspaper reporter for a long time, at newspapers in New Mexico, Texas, New Hampshire, Indiana and finally, here in Ohio. During that time, I met, covered or wrote about every president from Johnson through George Bush Sr. I did not work as a reporter during Clinton's term, but I did hear him speak several times. I could see "spots" in all of them, but generally speaking, I respect them for doing all they did to become president and then the way they performed their duties as president, including, believe it or not, Richard Nixon. Politically, I was a Democrat for a long time, but then the Democrats became too narrow in their views, so narrow that middle class Americans, was no longer their main concern. It seems that over my years (I am 61) that the Republicans have become more Democrats than the Democrats were. All that said, my own view is the best president we've had during my life time is George Bush Sr. I! say that because I believe his senses of right and wrong were correct. You say the Arab League should have handled the first Gulf War,  but I doubt it could have done it. In fact, I was in the US Air Force Reserve at the time, and the general feeling then was that were not American troops in Saudi Arabia at the time---Saddam would have invaded that country, too.

As to the present George Bush, I like the fact that he does stay the course, or by that I mean, he says what he will do, and he does it. At the same time, I am not at all sure that all he has done or plans to do in Israel or Iraq are the correct things to do. I do not believe, however, that he has any sinister, mean or evil reason for whatever he is doing. I believe he has the best interest of Iraq in mind in what he is doing, and, contrary to your own beliefs, I do not think the oil in Iraq is driving what he does or does not do.  I am also certain, by the way, that he would like to pull American troops out of Iraq as soon as possible--as do all Americans.

The one great thing about our system of government is that in November, ALL Americans who want to can vote to elect the American president for the next four years, their Congressmen for the next two years and their senators for the next six years. Will a new batch of politicians change anything? I doubt it, in a sudden, radical way because in my experience things here shift slightly to the right or to the left, but generally the shifts are just that: slight. The one exception might be President Ford's decision to bail out of Vietnam, but, in a way that was not sudden either in that it had been building up for at least four or five years with all the anti-war demonstrations etc.

How do I conclude all this? My own ancestors came from Scotland to this country in the 1700s. They fought in the American Revolution, the War of 1812, at the battle of the Alamo, the Civil War (on both sides), World War I and World War II. I was in Vietnam, but as a reporter, not as a soldier. I was born in Oklahoma, but I have lived all over the country.
When I was born and where I was born, most of the people were white, but since then the populations of the cities in which I have lived, (Columbus being the longest), have changed. We now have 7,000 Russians who live here, 20,000 Somalians, a large number of Arabs, many Mexicans, a lot of Chinese, some Vietnamese, Some Laotians--and well, you name the country, someone from one of them probably lives here.  And all of those who are citizens will be able to vote for or against George Bush. All of them can freely speak their opinions about anything he does. Anyone can freely demonstrate for or against what he does.

But, I might add, many of the freedoms that we once enjoyed have been eroded--and quickly. Guess why? Because some Arabs flew airplanes into two buildings in New York and one in Washington, D.C. Today, when I enter the office building where I work, I must show an ID card. When I go to the airport, I have to stand in a long line to be screened for items that could be used as weapons to hijack a plane. Why because of a fear of terrorism from extremists, not only from Arabs by the way, but people with their views; that the way to change is to kill a lot of people they don't even know.

I don't really know how to conclude all of this except to say yours is an influential voice. I hope you use it, as you say, to promote peace and harmony for all. I hope that you point out flaws in the Palestinians when you see them, as well as flaws in the Israelis. I hope you stand for and promote religious views that espouse kindness and love, not hate and violence.

John Meekins